I'm Jen, a coffee-gulping, jellyfish-loving writer person living in Los Angeles.
I like writing about connection, creativity, and healthy living. You'll also find that I post quotes, tips for living a more fulfilling life, and a seemingly endless stream of aquarium & horizon photos.
You can find my passion project for living a smaller, slower life at SmallLifeSlowLife.com.
Contact links are below. Hope you'll stop and stay a while!
Hi! It's me, Jen.
It’s so easy to be obsessed with weight. I’ve been too heavy, I’ve been too thin. I have stretchmarks and cellulite, sometimes my ribs stick out. There’s always a portion of my wardrobe that doesn’t fit. Sometimes I’m in wicked shape and sometimes I’m lazy. What matters is being happy & telling the truth! Sometimes I even forget that too! #heavy #thin #whocares #behappy
{NEW} Small Life, Slow Life: Mega-Juicy Inspiration – Every Quote You’ll Ever Need, Ever! {146 Quotes!}
I went through this whole blog and would you know it, I’ve posted 250+ quotes?! I compiled 146 of the best ones and put them all together for you. <3
Read them here: http://smalllifeslowlife.com/2013/04/09/small-life-slow-life-mega-juicy-inspiration-every-quote-youll-ever-need-ever-146-quotes/
So honored to have been a part of this. I would do it all again. Such an incredible feeling to have shared the stage with these incredible human beings.
{NEW!} Small Life, Slow Life: DIY - How to Make Kombucha! {Photos & Recipe!}
I wrote a post on how to make kombucha! It’s yummy and healthy and you can steal the method and take all the credit! (As far as I go, all the credit goes to Kombucha Kamp!)
Tonight is the night! I’ll be speaking with my heart on fire.
LA peeps - to RSVP, email beyondluon@lululemon.com with your name and the # of tickets you’d like.
Small Life, Slow Life: What Parts of Yourself Have You Abandoned?
I learn a hard life lesson. Again.
Sometimes, birds fall out of the sky.
A pigeon fell straight out of the sky while I was driving home last night.
I was on the phone with my friend Elizabeth. We were having a good conversation. It was dark, and just beginning to rain. I was talking about the “a-ha” moments I’d had earlier in the day, and feeling excited because my friend Marianne was coming over. There was a car a few yards behind me in the right lane.
Then, suddenly, a pigeon fell straight out of the sky and onto the road.
It was only flapping one wing. It had clearly been injured. It fell like a brick - not soft or fluttery at all. It fell in a line that was eerily straight. Where it fell from, I have no idea. A telephone wire above the road? A street lamp? Where do pigeons (and all the other birds, for that matter) go at night, anyway?
I clapped my hand over my mouth and gasped. I mumbled a bunch of “oh my god”s to Elizabeth.
I wondered about the car yards behind me on my right.
Part of me thought, Please don’t hit it.
Part of me thought, Please hit it quickly, and totally.
My mind tried to recover. To continue talking to Elizabeth. To pretend I hadn’t seen the pigeon fall out of the sky.
But I also thought about how a manuscript I was editing recently discussed birds falling out of the sky, and fish floating toward the surface, and what that means.
My mind wanted to go down a hundred different paths. It doesn’t mean anything. It definitely means something. It’s December 21st in a week. That whole thing is bullshit. Something must have injured it, but what? It’s dead now, it’s okay. It’s not dead - it’s in the road, suffering, getting run over and tossed around by cars. I’m a bad person - I was just thinking about how pigeons are ugly. No, don’t think that - you obviously didn’t want it to die.
I felt guilty for every time I’d thought, “Ugh, I hate pigeons.” Or the times even recently that I looked at pigeons and thought about how crows are much more beautiful.
Once, my childhood best friend’s mother was driving us to Magic Mountain. It was spring break. We were in the back seat, giggling and being nerdily excited. Twenty feet ahead, we saw a crow. Something was terribly wrong with it. It was flying too low. It was hitting the road and then trying to fly again. Something about it looked like a beach ball being tossed down the shore by wind.
We all knew it would happen. It was one of those sick “oh no, that’s about to happen” moments.
My friend’s mother ran over it. We felt the front tire go over it, and then the back tire. The car rose a little bit each time. The sound was terrible; I’ll never forget it.
My friend and I started screaming. “It was already hit!” her mother said. “Another car had already hit it! It was already injured!” Defending herself against what wasn’t her fault.
I couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, but I still wince when I remember the feeling of the tire running over that bird.
I want to write positive things here. But sometimes, birds fall out of the sky and I can’t get it out of my mind. Sometimes, I wonder if anything means anything at all.
In little glimpses, it shows up.
Happiness.
It’s when I connect with a stranger at work. I met Beverly a few days ago - eighty years-old, with a curly hot pink ponytail swishing across her neck. She cut most of her hair short in 1974, but her husband liked to play with her hair, so she kept a ponytail. In 1982, she dyed it pink and has been doing so ever since. Her husband has been dead for fourteen years, but she still keeps the ponytail. I wondered if she felt like cutting it would mean cutting him off. But she was so proud of that ponytail.
In her spare time, Beverly rock climbs, scuba dives and photographs things. She doesn’t tell her children about most of the things she does, because they worry about her.
“‘You’ll fall,’ they say. But I could fall going to the market. So why worry them?”
I told her I’d been wanting to dye the underside of my hair purple for a long time. She said, “So why the hell not? Just do it.”
It almost popped out of my mouth - why I hadn’t done it. How for so long, I let other people dictate what I did with my hair.
Finally, I said, “Yeah, you’re right - why not?”
There are glimpses of happiness when I get home at the end of the day. The first thing is the sound of my keys hitting the counter. I can’t even properly articulate how much the sound pleases me. There is no logical reason for me to put my keys on the counter. The truth is, I prefer that my keys are resting safely in my purse. But for almost two years now, I haven’t gotten to hear that sound of my keys hitting my counter. I talked about the longing for that here (which was a long time ago). When I was searching for this apartment, I only had a few requirements - that I be on the second floor, that there be a window through which I could see the trees, and that there be a counter where I could drop my keys at the end of the day. I couldn’t wait to hear that noise. It was like the sound of a far-off bell, calling me home.
The first night my landlord handed over the keys, I stood in this apartment by myself and just dropped the keys on the counter five or six times. And for the first time in many weeks, I smiled. Really smiled.
There’s happiness after I drop the keys on the counter (and then put them safely in my purse) and start cooking. I’m not a great cook, but I discovered in Japan that there’s something about the chop, chop, chopping while music is on in the background that makes me get all squirmy and happy. And unlike 90% of the time when I eat, I really enjoy eating after I’ve cooked something just for me. (I hate eating. I am no foodie. I have long said that if you could put an IV in my arm and all of my nutritional needs would be satisfied, I would be the first in line to get the needle inserted.) There’s no one around, so I can get really excited that I’ve just made organic pasture-raised beef hot dogs and how lovely they taste in swirled organic mustard and sugar-free ketchup (no bun, no bread). I also really love eating the same five or six things over and over again. Beef patties cooked in butter. Sweet potatoes cooked in bacon fat and seasoned with rosemary, salt and pepper. Chopped carrots covered in balsamic vinegar. Half of an avocado, eaten straight out of the skin with a spoon (sometimes covered with hot sauce). I know almost no one understands this. That also makes me happy.
There are things you can only learn about yourself through living alone. For me, this is my third time living alone, so it’s more like remembering these parts of myself that have been dormant. Like, I have an addiction to having a beverage of some kind. Since coming home tonight, I’ve had a kombucha, a coffee with cream, a green tea and finally hot chocolate. I got up a few minutes ago to start the kettle again and had to firmly tell myself to quit it. Water is never enough - I always have to be drinking something. I think that’s something cute about me, and I have no idea where it comes from.
Also, people change. I was never this clean in my twenties. I used to leave dishes in the sink for…I’m ashamed to admit…up to two weeks at a time. I’m not sure when it changed, but I always finish the dishes before going to bed now. (Also, having a dishwasher has changed my life.) I make the bed everyday, even though no one ever comes here. I’ve had people in my apartment on the day I moved in and that’s it. Although I am having Marianne over for dinner tomorrow.
That’s the other thing. Tonight I went to my new Whole Foods and bought two pounds of grass-fed beef for stew, and a bunch of spices I didn’t have yet, and cute little frozen pearl onions and some mushrooms. The cashier said he wanted to come over for whatever it was I was making. I think he was flirting, but I have no idea since that whole scene is like a foggy dream from a long time ago. Anyway, I’ll set them all up in the slow cooker in the morning before I go to job #2. And I was filled with a subtle happiness the whole night tonight, knowing I’ll be able to provide someone with a meal tomorrow. I don’t know what it is about being able to give something so simple that means so much to me. I can’t believe the power this tiny kitchen has given me. (Wow, how unfeminist of me.)
Oh, and music! Dear, sweet music - how I’d forgotten you. I organize my playlists by month - I’ve done that for a long time - but there is so much new music I’ve been missing out on! It’s all very exciting. This song is currently slaying me. (My heart’s a secret under your tongue.)
Books, too.
But, I mean - who are we kidding? Happiness is still currently a slippery stranger that shows up unannounced, just when I think I’ve missed her for good. True, she’s coming around a little more frequently these days. When I open the door and she’s there, I could almost get on my knees and kiss her feet, saying just the same few words:
Thank you, thank you. Stay. Please stay.
It has not been my experience that having a tough day is alleviated by going to work.
But in my current world, that’s exactly the case.
It wasn’t like that at first. I resisted this job that I’d taken, considering it beneath me. And then, when I was going through a tough time, I lay in the bed in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, searching for even one thing to be grateful for.
It was my job that allowed me to hold on. I closed my eyes and felt so, so thankful to work with the people I do. That small realization in the middle of a dark time kept me going through the difficult weeks that were to follow.
Since then, it’s all transformed. I didn’t notice the connection at first. I’d go into work grumpy (and still do), assuming I’d run into other grumpy guests or have to do things I didn’t want to do.
Once I was in my car after my shift, I started noticing that I was in a really good mood. It was really only this week that I thought, “Wow - I think it’s work that puts me in a good mood!”
I work with the quirkiest, sweetest goofballs ever. They call me on my shit and demand excellence out of me. And I love them.
Healthy, cheerful guests come into the store. They are eager to share what is working in their lives. It took me a little while to learn how to soothe the ones who do not come in so cheerful. My goal is to have each person leave the store feeling like they were heard and understood. It nearly always works.
I didn’t know how much taking this job would change me. But it has. And I am lucky.
Living in a dream world.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve stumbled into some kind of a dream world.
I have a new apartment. It is so, so lovely. Everything I wanted when I imagined the kind of place I wanted to be in after the earthquake. It’s so very like what I imagined that it freaks me out sometimes. The apartment is spacious, very affordable, and has a big balcony. There’s a large bathtub and the hot water never runs out. Actual sunbeams pour in from the east-facing window in the morning and the whole place becomes warm. Somehow, there is a beautiful kitchen with a bar, complete with a stove/oven, a garbage disposal and a brand new dishwasher. (I’ve never had a dishwasher in my adult life, and I have paid much, much more for rent than I am now).
There’s a spot for my meditation pillow, and I found my PS2 so I can play Final Fantasy VII again. I place my laptop on the little coffee table and sit on the floor like I used to in Japan. I drink too many cups of coffee and find beautiful things on the internet. I watch things I always wanted to (The Five Year Engagement, HBO’s Girls) and I lay in bed at night, re-reading Eat, Pray, Love.
But sometimes I feel like none of this is real - like I’m actually in a coma and this is one long dream. Or I’ve stumbled into the Twilight Zone.
For one thing, it seems that no one else lives in this building. The landlord told me there are 28 units total and my unit was the only vacancy, but, I mean…I never see anyone else. I come and go at all times of day because my work schedule is so variable. No kids playing. No couples arguing. Even the neighbor across from me who warned me that she blasts her music has been nowhere to be found, nor have I heard any music at all.
Beyond that, I keep running into people I know. Everywhere. All the time. People I haven’t seen in years! People I’ve been wondering about. It’s wonderful to see them. My life has become this giant open book and I’m very relaxed about the whole thing. In response to that, there seem to be opportunities everywhere. Long phone calls. Lunch dates. Terrible parties in Hollywood (I’ll have to tell the story of that one another time).
Sometimes I look around and think, “Whose life is this?” It’s so strange (and beautiful) that it’s mine.
{NEW} Small Life, Slow Life: A Kick of Creativity! (DIY-Central!)
I’ve got a great new post up at Small Life, Slow Life on tons of cute DIY stuff. You should def wander over there and check it out!
Darcy’s Wedding!
I just put up a post on my main blog, smalllifeslowlife.com, with some choice snapshots from Darcy’s wedding! Go check it out! :)
My newest project!
You may have noticed that I’m not blogging here as frequently - it’s because I’ve begun a project I’ve been passionate about for a long time: Small Life, Slow Life.
What is Small Life, Slow Life?
It’s a blog about the ways a smaller, slower life contributes to a deep sense of fulfilling happiness. Since moving back to Los Angeles from Japan, I was plagued by the notion that I was missing something vital, but could never put my finger on what it was. After months of soul searching, I finally realized that my life in Japan was much smaller, and thus, happier. I go into all the reasons I decided to consciously shrink my life on the site’s About page.
I will continue to post photos, quotes and updates from my daily life here. I hope you’ll feel free in checking out Small Life, Slow Life too!
xo,
Jen
Breaking up with Veganism.
Though geared towards vegans, have we not all been there?! Fed up with sticking to the rules of our diet, it’s super easy to throw in the towel and gorge on junk. I offer five reasons to suck it up. Take a look.
Answer. (Don’t.)
I dreamed of you last night -
You were…
…well,
how you are.
Also, during a massage a few weeks ago -
Pop!
Into my mind.
I hate that.
There was something uncompleted.
(Us.)
A gesture went unanswered.
I wanted to be special,
You wanted to be mounted.
(Even in my dreams now, you’re an asshole.)
My mind is still making fix-it solutions.
Even if you die
(wish I ashamedly sometimes wish you would),
My mind will keep doing that.
It says, Answer the gesture.
